By Levi Sumagaysay

Twitter has fired unionized janitors in apparent violation of San Francisco law.

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said Tuesday that he will look into the loss of Twitter janitors’ jobs, which appears to be in violation of San Francisco law.

Members of the SEIU Local 87 went on strike Monday as their contract was set to expire Dec. 9. The contractor that employed them is set to be replaced by another contractor that Twitter would not disclose to the union, according to Olga Miranda, president of the union local. Twitter then moved up the janitors’ last day on the job to Monday, she said.

According to San Francisco law, when a company changes contractors for security or janitorial services, the contractor is supposed to rehire workers for at least 90 days after the transition.

When contacted by MarketWatch on Tuesday, Chiu said: “Elon Musk has a long history of flouting labor laws. While I’m not surprised this happened, I feel for those workers as well as all Twitter employees and contractors who have been laid off. We will be looking into this further.”

Miranda said 48 janitors in total are affected, 30 of whom were waiting to go back to work because many Twitter employees had been working from home and not as many janitors were needed.

San Francisco-based Twitter, whose communications team was reportedly almost entirely laid off at the beginning of November after Musk bought the company, has not returned a request for comment. Musk has cut about half of the company’s pre-acquisition workforce of 7,500 since he took over.

Also Tuesday, Ted Goldberg, a senior editor at KQED, San Francisco’s public radio station, tweeted that the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection is launching an investigation into news reported by Forbes that Twitter has set up bedrooms for employees at its headquarters.

“We need to make sure the building is being used as intended,” a representative of the department told KQED News.

– Levi Sumagaysay

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

12-07-22 1251ET

Copyright (c) 2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

The post Twitter’s fired janitors and workplace beds are being investigated by San Francisco officers appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

By Levi Sumagaysay

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said Tuesday that he will look into the loss of Twitter janitors’ jobs, which appears to be in violation of San Francisco law.

Members of the SEIU Local 87 went on strike Monday as their contract was set to expire Dec. 9. The contractor that employed them is set to be replaced by another contractor that Twitter would not disclose to the union, according to Olga Miranda, president of the union local. Twitter then moved up the janitors’ last day on the job to Monday, she said.

According to San Francisco law, when a company changes contractors for security or janitorial services, the contractor is supposed to rehire workers for at least 90 days after the transition.

When contacted by MarketWatch on Tuesday, Chiu said: “Elon Musk has a long history of flouting labor laws. While I’m not surprised this happened, I feel for those workers as well as all Twitter employees and contractors who have been laid off. We will be looking into this further.”

Miranda said 48 janitors in total are affected, 30 of whom were waiting to go back to work because many Twitter employees had been working from home and not as many janitors were needed.

San Francisco-based Twitter, whose communications team was reportedly almost entirely laid off at the beginning of November after Musk bought the company, has not returned a request for comment. Musk has cut about half of the company’s pre-acquisition workforce of 7,500 since he took over.

Also Tuesday, Ted Goldberg, a senior editor at KQED, San Francisco’s public radio station, tweeted that the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection is launching an investigation into news reported by Forbes that Twitter has set up bedrooms for employees at its headquarters.

“We need to make sure the building is being used as intended,” a representative of the department told KQED News.

– Levi Sumagaysay

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

12-06-22 2149ET

Copyright (c) 2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

The post Unique: San Francisco metropolis legal professional wanting into lack of Twitter janitors’ jobs appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Thousands of SEIU supervisors on strike in Philadelphia in 2019. Cory Clark / AP

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More than 700 San Francisco janitors represented by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) quit their jobs yesterday morning and launched a three-day strike for improved COVID protection and working conditions after months of contract negotiations collapsed.

Hundreds of workers waved protest signs and sang in front of the Salesforce Tower – Salesforce chairman, CEO and billionaire Marc Benioff’s passion for skyline capping – in San Francisco’s high-dollar SoMA district, home to the offices of Silicon Valley giants Amazon, Airbnb and Facebook are located, Google and Twitter. The companies enter into contracts with custodians through facility management companies such as ABM and Able Services.

“These buildings won’t be safe until the janitors have a fair contract,” Olga Miranda, a striking janitor, told local CBS subsidiary KPIX – and if the janitors aren’t sure, Miranda said, “others will definitely not be safe be.”

“Strike”
Hundreds of SF caretakers are on STRIKE today.
The caretakers – mainly women, colored people and migrant workers – fight for a fair trade union contract with protection from sexual harassment and security measures!
Boost @Ableserve & @ABM_Industries #JusticeForJanitors pic.twitter.com/KR8bGd0P4A

– Justice for Janitor (@JusticeforJans) March 24, 2021

Since the pandemic began, over 3,000 caretakers, mostly black migrants, have been laid off and at least 26 workers have died of COVID-19, according to SEIU Local 87 members. With their eight-month struggle for a new contract at a dead end, the union janitors are demanding not only better ventilation and protective equipment, but also a raise in salaries, health insurance coverage, improved sick pay and protection from sexual harassment in the workplace.

When the pandemic hit in March last year, the precarious conditions for low-wage workers were exposed – and a series of strikes sparked, which led the calls related to COVID to a wider struggle for improved working conditions. All over the west coast similarly endangered farm workers Strikes – with and without the support of the trade unions – not only because of insufficient cover-ups of PPE and COVID, but also because of wage cuts and insufficient sick pay during the pandemic. As my colleague Julia Lurie reported in December:

When some pickers and packers hit this breaking point, there were COVID-related slips on the west coast … Hundreds of fruit packers in the Yakima Valley in Washington left production lines to protest a lack of safety and hazard payments. In Santa Maria, California, strawberry pickers left work to protest falling wages, just as many families were particularly financially stricken. Blueberry pickers near Fresno also encountered a wage cut and stood beside the red and black waving fields [United Farm Workers] Flags.

As in San Francisco, these strikes were not limited to masks and hand sanitizer. Workers who have mobilized over imminent threats to their health and safety have expanded their demands to include working conditions exacerbated by the pandemic – particularly in Bessemer, Alabama, where Amazon warehouse workers are casting their final votes in the most serious attempt to date, the company to merge into trade union organizations. (Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, saw his net worth grow by $ 58 billion during the pandemic.)

These efforts were supported by, among others, President Joe Biden and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. And, according to Gallup, two-thirds of Americans are in favor of unions – their best poll in more than a decade.

STRIKE ALERT

26 caretakers have died of # COVID19 in San Francisco. We’re in the pandemic for a year – but janitors still don’t have the PPE and ventilation they need.

As SF moves to the orange plane today, @ SEIU87’s janitors have started a ULP strike to demand safety at work. # 1u pic.twitter.com/3IqeDKgaXO

– UNITE HERE Local 2 #PROAct (@ UniteHereLocal2) March 24, 2021

Caretaker strikes across town are not new. In 2018, SEIU 87 caretakers struck outside the offices of troubled cooperating startup WeWork with a mariachi band playing in support. In 2019, the union fought for a fairer contract on the steps of the fitness company Equinox, both times drawing attention to the divide between the treatment of higher-level employees by startups and their essential employees. Elsewhere, the union is fighting for more than 10,000 airport workers pushing for health care in New York and New Jersey, as well as immigrant domestic workers struggling for permanent residence.

“I deserve to feel safe at work,” said Ramiro, another caretaker for the SEIU, during the strike. “But almost a year after the pandemic, and we’re still collecting trash without masks or hand sanitizer.”

The post San Francisco Janitors Are on Strike for COVID Security—and the Struggle Doesn’t Finish There – Mom Jones appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

After contract negotiations stalled, hundreds of janitors in San Francisco, represented by Service Employees (SEIU) Local 87, went on March 24.

About 3,000 caretakers in the Bay Area were laid off as the pandemic spread last year. Your union is now calling for all laid-off workers to return to work – but with improvements.

They want better ventilation in buildings, protective equipment for workers, a wage increase, health insurance, additional sick days and protection against sexual harassment for a workforce that is predominantly made up of black migrant women.

At least 26 custodian banks died after being infected with the coronavirus. Workers want improved ventilation.

The three-day strike came to an impasse after eight months of contract negotiations with Able Service and ABM Industries, two contractors that provide cleaning services in downtown office buildings.

The cleaning companies have moved to curtail the union to make seniority concessions and refuse to bargain in good faith, union leaders say.

“In my opinion, they did not come to negotiate. They didn’t want to give anything, but they wanted to take everything, ”said caretaker and negotiating team member Marcos Aranda, 30, father of six.

TECH GIANTS

The janitors clean 600 buildings across San Francisco, including engineering offices on Google, Facebook, and Salesforce.

Strikers picketed across town. Some gathered by the gleaming 1,000-foot Salesforce Tower. This monolith, like many office buildings, was largely empty due to remote work.

The strike coincided with tech workers from Twitter and other California companies returning to offices under state health directives as San Francisco headed for reopening.

While the janitors don’t negotiate directly with tech companies, these powerful companies are the ultimate target as they have the power to move the cleaning companies from intransigence to negotiation.

ESSENTIALLY BUT ignored

While other key workers were celebrated during the pandemic, janitors did not receive the same fanfare.

“There were no parades, no boiling in the cellars of buildings, no hammering pots,” said Olga Miranda, President of SEIU Local 87. “These are the quiet workers who go to work with dignity and nobody but their union makes a fuss makes.”

Caretaker wages of $ 22-23 are not enough to live in San Francisco. Look for an apartment in town to rent and the sticker shock will make you dizzy.

According to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, the living wage for a parent raising a child in San Francisco is $ 56. For two children, it’s $ 68.93.

The strike was over unfair labor practices that revolved around seniority and safety. The cleaning companies are demanding concessions from the union – in particular, the power to use criteria other than seniority to select which workers will be recalled from layoffs.

Seniority determines, for example, who prefers vacation time or who returns to work after being laid off.

“It’s a very slippery slope when you let employers set criteria for who can come back,” said Miranda, running through a series of hypothetical scenarios: “So if companies say good when the person can’t speak English, it’s us.” she doesn’t want to go back. If she’s a woman, we may not want her back. If they are Muslims and have prayed too much because it’s Ramadan, we may not want them back. ”

Overcoming fear

Aranda has been a janitor for 10 years after recovering from low-wage food service jobs. During the pandemic, he continued to work in the janitorial service for Pacific Gas & Electric Company, earning $ 23.30 an hour as a foreman.

He is grateful that he stayed on the payroll even though his building was vacant and other workers struggled to raise money to cover the bills.

Bills are often in Aranda’s head. In preparation for the strike, he took another job at OnTrac, a logistics company on the west coast, where he made $ 17 an hour delivering packages, with an extra dollar as a risk payment.

“There was a lot of fear,” he said, “you know, fear of not knowing what would happen afterwards. Did they want to lock us out? Would I be able to pay my bills? “

In part, he overcame this fear of sitting across from the bosses at the negotiating table, seeing them dig in their heels and rejecting any proposal from the union.

“If we had accepted, I would have felt weak,” he said.

When members argued in the union hall about whether to strike, Miranda said one member was lucky enough to have a job. Another replied, “Who will come to the company from the builder and apologize to your family for not doing enough to look after you? So we can fight while we are six feet above us, or we can mourn six feet below. “

“There are no superheroes. Nobody will fight for your families as much as you will fight for your own, ”adds Miranda. “And that’s why we’re on strike out there.”

KEEP ESCALATING

The union’s membership is diverse – Latino, Black, White, Chinese and Yemeni with an average age of 55 years. They survived the pandemic while the rest of the country huddled at home and worked remotely. Their names filled the number of dead as governors reported weekly on the pandemic rampage.

“There is no normalcy to return to,” admits Miranda, pointing to the move away from floor plans for open offices as an early sign of how the workplace will change.

Additionally, the pandemic may still be with us for some time. President Joe Biden has urged governors across the country to reinstate mandates to wear masks and halt reopening efforts as the country faces another surge in infections.

Despite paying lip service to their victims, key workers barely made any profits during the pandemic. Many refused to disrupt essential services, even if they had the public support to do so. But that’s not the case with SEIU Local 87, a 5,000-member union that tops its weight – and is poised to escalate further from here.

“The biggest fear is not being able to put food on the table or knowing that you will lose the roof over your baby’s head,” said Miranda. “This is scary – scarier than a goddamn pandemic.”

“Strike”
Hundreds of SF caretakers are at STRIKE today.
The caretakers – mainly women, colored people and migrant workers – fight for a fair trade union contract with protection from sexual harassment and security measures!
Boost @Ableserve & @ABM_Industries #JusticeForJanitors pic.twitter.com/KR8bGd0P4A

– Justice for Janitors (@JusticeforJans) March 24, 2021

The post How a Janitors Union in San Francisco Bought Over Its Worry and Struck appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.